Over the past few days I've done a lot of testing!

1. I ran 1.5 miles from my house to the beach before I got in. I expected the ocean to be calm that day as the winds were down. I didn't check the surf report. Duh. This dork swam in 2' waves and chop. Turns out the wind was blowing at the beach, just not my house!

I fully expected to freak out. Chop/waves are not my friend and I avoid them when I can. However, I did not have any panic, breathing issues. The water felt warm and oh so wonderful to me! Yes, I had some fun free-falling and a face full of water numerous times. But I just laughed and tried not to get sea sick! No gasping, no racing heart. It wasn't an easy swim, and when I turned around and headed into the wind/waves it was much harder and I had to stop.

+ 1 for elevating my heart rate with a hard run before getting into the water. Seems to help.

2. On Saturday I swam at a lagoon on the other side of the island. Calm, flat, no wind. Ran 1 mile before the swim, got nice and hot, high heart rate. But the water felt much colder and I started to get chills and began to shiver before I could get my chest in the water. Head in and I was doing the gasping thing. Keep in mind that this is FLAT water that I can stand up in. There is no panic here. There is no fear of the water. It is a response my body is kicking up due to cold water temps.

I swam with my coach and she had me do controlled breathing exercises for 100m. At 100m I did more stroke work and had horrible issues with inhaling water. I can't control the gasping underwater so I suck up water before I can come up for air. At 200m I continued to do more stroke work, concentrating on breathing every 2 strokes, then switching sides. At 300m I began to be able to control my breathing better. At 500m I was better. And was able to swim another 500 only having to stop for breath twice. (not because I was gasping, but because I was just tired!)

Of the 2 swim sessions my body was MUCH colder on Saturday. The water in the lagoon is probably a colder temp and it was early in the day.

I do not believe it is panic related. If I was going to panic it would have been on Friday in the 2' waves and chop. Not calm, flat and only 5' deep.

And I do get this when I snorkel for the first 15-20 min. It's so not fun!